The Bad Seed
by Mrstrentreznor
Summary: What if sweet, adorable Seth really wasn't? AU


**The bad seed**

AN: **Suz 26 challenged me ages ago:**

_**Maybe you should try writing an evil Seth story? Has anyone written an evil Seth yet? Maybe some screwball take on the campy, classic, The Bad Seed, where everyone thinks Leah's the bitch sib but it's really sweet little Seth masterminding everything and is the evil one?**_

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_Disclaimer: the characters and all recognisable situations belong to Stephenie Meyer - this is a work of fan fiction, except for the legends and histories of the Quileute that, of course, belong to them. I pay my respects to their gods._

_Thanks to BanSidhe [ruadh sidhe] and Feebes86 for betaing and pre-reading._

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Seth and Leah Clearwater were always together. They were siblings, they were close. No one questioned it. Sam had whined occasionally when he and Leah were dating. Did Seth really have to go with them everywhere? But Leah just insisted.

After Sam imprinted on Emily and broke Leah's heart, she spent even more time with Seth. She got a reputation as a complete bitch. Tragedy dogged their lives. Seth's best friend had fallen into the ice and drowned. A grandparent had died in their sleep unexpectedly. Their father had a fatal heart attack.

It was that first death that keyed Leah in. They were best friends; Seth and Adam. Completely inseparable. They'd had a stupid, pointless boy fight over a foot race at school that Adam had won. Seth came second, but he was sure that he should have won. And the next day, Adam was dead. She had gone to his room to offer whatever comfort she could to a boy who had lost his best friend, when she found the winning medal on Seth's bedside table.

Seth was such a complete sweetie. Everyone loved him. He gambolled around like an adorable puppy. Maybe Adam had given him the medal to keep him happy? Her hand closed around it and she tried to erase her doubts.

But now she watched him.

Leah started to notice that Seth was not all sunshine and flowers. He had dark moods, but they passed across his face in a flash. He had seemed to work out the right thing to say to adults to get what he wanted. The sunny, lovey dovey approach worked wonders. When he didn't get what he wanted, he took it anyway.

She noticed that he stole money from her mother's purse; that he took the cookies or whatever it was that he wanted, and he always had a convincing argument as to why it wasn't him if anyone thought to ask him what had happened. He started to blame Leah for stuff. She was already angry and when people started accusing her that made it worse. But who would ever suspect sweet little Seth?

Grandma Littlesea had been ill. But she still had all her marbles, Leah knew that. She seemed to cotton on to the fact that Seth was not all sweetness and light, too. But then she got pneumonia; a tough disease for old people. The coughing and the inability to breathe made it hard for her. Leah heard her fighting with Seth over a pair of missing earrings. She said she had woken from a nap to see Seth leaving her room and then she noticed the jewellery was gone. She demanded that Seth give them back or she would tell his mother. Leah had already noticed that he had bought that new X box game he had lusted after for ages.

That night Grandma Littlesea died in her sleep. They never did find those earrings.

When Seth started growing at a crazy rate, Leah started praying. She had never much prayed before, but she suspected the truth about the wolf pack. If Seth became one of **them** he would be unstoppable. Her prayers were answered, but not quite in the way she had hoped.

The gods made her a wolf, too.

The first thing he did was scare their father to death. Seth had never really liked his father. He was competition for his mother's affection. All the time and energy she spent fussing over Harry and his heart problems, was time she was not spending with Seth. And he didn't like it. They knew he had health issues; they knew he wasn't well. So all it took to push him into a fatal coronary was seeing his son wave one clawed paw too close to him. Leah was standing over her father's body in wolf form, when Sue found them. She took the fall for that one too.

Later, after the funeral, she saw Sue and Seth lying cuddled on the bed together. Sue looked exhausted and had fallen asleep. Seth knew Leah saw them and just for a second she saw triumph in his eyes.

She left. She knew her mother would be safe with him for now. She didn't know what to do. She had to come up with some plan. She was Leah fucking Clearwater. She was better than this.

She was on patrol one night when Jake phased in and heard her thoughts. She told him the whole sorry tale. He was pretty caught up in zombie Bella, but he was Jake; he always found time for his friends. He didn't believe her. Of course he didn't, nobody ever did. He asked her if this was about Sam. She assured him that not everything in her life was about Sam Uley. She made him swear to say nothing. He agreed, only because he thought she was insane with grief.

Then a strange watching game started. She knew that Seth knew that she knew.

She spent as much time with him as she could. She started to get the blame for more things going wrong. It was always **her** that was seen last with whatever was missing now. She had scraped the car at the mall. It was always **her** that was doing the wrong thing. Swearing at the dinner table. Being disrespectful. Always Leah. Seth was the picture of the good son. She knew she had left it too late. If she tried to out him now, it would only make her look worse. No one would believe her now. And she had no proof. She just **knew**. And as far as she knew, he had already killed three people.

She noticed Jake watching her a few times now. She told him she hadn't caught the crazy train and he should just let it go. He had his hands full in any case. Bella Swan.

Leah agonised over what to do. She got even snappier and more irritable, until no one wanted to go on patrol with her. Suited her fine.

The gods had made her a wolf. Wolves were protectors of the tribe. Surely they should do more than just hunt vampires? Was it okay for her to kill a murderer, knowing that he would kill again if he got the opportunity? Jesus? Was she planning to kill him?

.

.

.

Yes.

Yes, she was.

She had gone over it again and again. She could not think of any other solution.

The problem now, was how the hell did she kill a super strong, superfast-healing shape shifter wolf? She started to suspect that it was only a matter of time before their mother was going to be found dead. Sure, Seth loved her _now_. But he had loved his father and his grandmother too. His love wasn't healthy and normal; it was toxic and erratic. He literally loved people to death.

He had started talking about what they could do with the house when Sue was gone. She was barely forty, for fuck's sake. She did have the biggest bedroom, with the separate bathroom, and Seth wanted it. Leah thought about trying to suggest to her mother that she swap bedrooms with Seth, but she could never think up any good reasons for doing it.

She was on patrol when she found the scree slope. The constant rain and the freezing temperatures combined to cause weathering of the rock formations in the mountains. Large angular pieces broke off whenever the water in the cracks froze and expanded. The pieces fell from the cliff face and cascaded down in a sloped pile of loose, dangerous rocks. She tossed down a rock and watched a mini avalanche start.

It was perfect.

She trained. She ran that path until she knew exactly how fast she could get there.

She got hauled off her feet one bonfire night by a furious Jake. He dragged her out of earshot, down by the surf where the noise of the ocean covered their voices. He demanded to know what she was doing. She assured him that she wasn't doing anything. He didn't believe her. She told him to go fuck himself. She almost asked him for help. She wanted to, but this wasn't his issue. It was hers. She should have done something about Seth years ago. Three deaths ago, in fact.

This was her cross to bear.

She waited a while until there was something that she knew that he really wanted. Skyrim. A game most teenage boys would kill for. She bought the last copy at the shop and she literally waved it in front of him. He begged, he pleaded and he demanded. Sue eventually told her to let him have a turn. She saw that triumph flash across his face and in that moment she hated her own brother. She told him if he could beat her in a race to the top of the mountain, he could have the game. He looked doubtful. No strings attached she assured him. But then his arrogance caught him. She knew that he thought he was faster than her. They agreed on the finishing point.

She ran. She ran as if her life depended on it. It probably did. She was so thankful she had practiced this. She beat him there. She won the race.

He arrived, utterly furious. She had already taunted him with childish na-na-na's before he got there. His phased back and his face went utterly black. She almost quailed, but then she phased too and she managed to laugh at him. She thought she sounded half insane. She teased him about how much fun she would have being an adventurer, before she took an arrow to the knee, of course. She told him that she would **never** let him play the game.

He muttered something about her being fourth.

She reminded him of the others: his best friend Adam, Grandma Clearwater and their father. She told him that she knew he had killed them and for dumb reasons. He laughed and said they were too easy to kill.

She was so shocked that he had actually admitted it, that she almost didn't react when he leapt at her with no warning. She slid sideways and pushed him over her shoulder. His own momentum took care of the rest. His body fell over the cliff edge. He grabbed at her as if to take her with him and she felt herself start to fall, but then she got hauled backwards off her feet. Seth screamed her name as he plummeted. The noise was deafening.

She stood there with Jake's hand still locked around her upper arm. They watched until the dust from the avalanche settled. Nothing moved. They kept watching, just in case. The first tears tracked down her face.

He said he had heard everything. He believed her now.

She cried. Jake hugged her.

She refused to leave until it was dark. She had to be completely satisfied that he was not going to be digging his way out.

Jake sat with her and held her hand.

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I am betaing for someone right now (actually four someones, but never mind…) Bmitw is writing an Ephraim/Bella story. I know, right? It's a bit different from the usual run of the mill stuff, so feel free to check it out.

http:/ www. fanfiction. net/s/8047540/1/Gods_and_Wolves


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